After laying out the plan to make a movie, Chen Chen came to the "Alzheimer's Disease Reversal Treatment" project team and asked for all the research results of the current project team, as well as a few white mice.
The "Alzheimer's disease reversal treatment" project team does exist. The leader is Evans, another professor of neurology invited by Chen Chen. He has participated in several clinical trials of Alzheimer's disease. This project also It's his old profession.
However, Chen Chen did not plan to experiment with Evans, because Chen Chen needed to use NZT-48 for experiments.
Chen Chen will not allow NZT-48 to be known to any outsiders until his power completely transcends the ordinary world.
Therefore, Chen Chen could only carry out the experiment alone.
As for the mice that the project team asked for, they are genetically modified mice that carry a mutant form of human tau. This kind of mice will begin to have tau tangles in the brain when they are 6 months old, and will appear at 9 months old. Show signs of neurological damage at 6 months old.
This is a genetically modified mouse created by humans to simulate Alzheimer's symptoms.
Chen Chen reopened a laboratory on the fifth floor. After moving all the materials in, he began to look at Professor Evans' research results during this period one by one.
Foreign academia has always adhered to the tradition of naming the person who discovered it. More than 100 years ago, a doctor named Alzheimer dissected the brain of a patient who died of Alzheimer's disease and discovered a shocking discovery. Phenomenon.
Not only was the brain of the deceased severely shrunk, but even the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for memory, thinking and language functions, was completely destroyed, replaced by necrotic brain cells and abnormal and strange brain deposits...
From this day on, mankind has officially been at war with Alzheimer's disease, the disease of the century.
However, due to the hidden nature of Alzheimer's disease, people did not pay much attention to this disease at first. It was not until the past two or three decades that human lifespan has become longer and longer, and the number of Alzheimer's patients has increased. The medical community has taken it seriously.
However, as humans investigate more and more deeply, they find that Alzheimer's disease is far more terrifying than humans imagined...
According to statistics from the Earth Federation Pharmaceutical Research and Development Association, from 1998 to 2017, top pharmaceutical groups including Bayer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, and Pfizer invested a total of more than 600 billion U.S. dollars to test failed Alzheimer’s disease The total number of medications was 146.
Counting 2018 and 2019, the world's top scientists have failed in the face of Alzheimer's disease a total of 154 times in the past 20 years.
The most shocking one was that in January 2018, Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, issued a statement: Due to insufficient technical capabilities, it would suspend the research and development of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease drugs...
In the face of this disease of the century, the world's top medical forces are helpless.
Chen Chen looked calm and ran his fingers through the piles of documents. These paper documents were all held in folders. Each book was five centimeters thick. At this time, the pile was as high as a hill in front of Chen Chen.
However, as Chen Chen flipped through each book, within a few hours, half of the information around him had been reduced, and the pile of information that represented the finished reading was getting higher and thicker.
If someone were to observe closely at this time, they would find that the more information they read, the brighter Chen Chen's eyes would become, until they seemed to be able to shine in the darkness!
After reading the latest batch of experimental data, Chen Chen finally breathed out, turned on the computer again, and compared it with the most cutting-edge results on the Internet.
After reading these, Chen Chen thoughtfully closed the webpage.
Great, the direction is there.
Chen Chen raised a smile on his lips, then took out a finger-sized piece of chocolate, peeled off the tin foil, and stuffed the whole piece into his mouth.
NZT-48 can make the brain operate at a high speed, but it will also consume a large amount of fat, carbohydrates, and proteins. Chocolate can supplement these substances. At the same time, cocoa can also strengthen the nervous system and help increase the oxygen content of the blood.
Therefore, Chen Chen recently developed the habit of eating a few pieces of chocolate after taking medicine.
As the chocolate slowly melted in his mouth, Chen Chen also started his own experiment.
He first put on sterile clothing and disinfected his whole body. Then he put on disposable rubber gloves in the laboratory, took out a capsule of NZT-48, and slowly dissolved it in glucose.
At the same time, Chen Chen took out the mice with the most obvious signs of nervous system damage, poured them into equal proportions of NZT-48 solution according to the grouping method, and then placed them in respective observation cages.
This is just one of the experiments.
In addition to testing the efficacy of NZT-48 on Alzheimer's disease, Chen Chen is also conducting another experiment at the same time. However, unlike the experimental directions currently on the market, Chen Chen plans to conduct research on inflammation.
You know, science and technology now generally believe that the cause of Alzheimer's disease is "β-amyloid deposition" and "abnormal phosphorylation of Tau protein". As a result, scientists have proposed a hypothesis for the cause of Alzheimer's disease - the β-amyloid theory. .
Most current clinical trials target amyloid-β in an attempt to break down or prevent the formation of amyloid-β deposits.
But as mentioned before, all therapeutic experiments targeting amyloid-β in the world have failed.
So Chen Chen decided to start with the inflammation hypothesis and brain immune cells.
There are several hypotheses about Alzheimer's disease, one of which is the inflammation hypothesis. A 2018 study in the journal "Neurology" found that herpes viruses are present in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
Then in 2019, a team published a paper in the sub-journal of Science. They discovered Porphyromonas gingivalis in the brains of patients, and through experiments on mice, they allowed this bacteria to invade the brains of mice. After the mice died, , they found dead neurons and increased levels of amyloid beta in the brains of mice.
At the end of 2019, in the journal "PNAS", a team discovered that a protein called TOM1 was sharply reduced in the brains of patients, and TOM1 is a crucial substance in a type of inflammatory response.
After the expression of TOM1 decreased, β-amyloid protein increased significantly in the brains of mice. At the same time, these mice also experienced cognitive decline. By increasing TOM1 in the reverse direction, the cognitive abilities of the mice were improved. recover.
This is the recent research result of the inflammation hypothesis, and even Professor Evans is working in this direction.
In addition to the inflammation hypothesis, Chen Chen also added the immune cell defect hypothesis.
Because one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease is the formation of "beta deposits" and "Tau tangles" in the brain, a type of immune cell called microglia can protect the brain by clearing these deposits and tangles.
They surround these harmful substances, swallowing up deposits and tangles piece by piece.
However, the latest research has found that although microglia limit the accumulation of harmful substances, it may be a double-edged sword.
Because microglia can secrete a substance called ApoE, which in turn enhances the formation of beta deposits. At the same time, in the later stages of the disease, once tau tangles are formed, microglia attack the tangles and may harm nearby neurons, leading to neurodegeneration.
Studies have found that if there are no microglia, or if microglia are not activated, tau tangles and beta deposition will not accumulate and develop to advanced stages, and the nervous system will not be damaged...
This is Chen Chen's research direction. With these directions, even if Chen Chen still cannot cure Alzheimer's disease, he can at least limit the progression of the disease and lock this century-old disease in its early stages!